What Happened to Asteroid After It Wiped Out Dinosaurs

boom an explosion of supersonic waves interplanetary heat dust fumes the earth's atmosphere has been invaded by a cosmic rock the size of everest a few seconds ago this rock weighing trillions of tons was hurtling towards earth it could fly from new york to anchorage faster than you could fry yourself an omelet this monster's name the cheek shiloh incident epic name right 66 million years ago it crashed into the earth back then dinosaurs ruled the planet but not for long the epic collision took place in modern mexico in the yucatan peninsula right near cancun where the dinosaurs were vacationing well probably not still the huge space rock hit the ocean but even all that water couldn't stop the inevitable the collision caused a huge amount of energy to be released the horror on a planetary scale had begun imagine a mini sun lighting up the surface of the earth with tsunamis the height of the statue of liberty bursting from the epicenter of the watery impact not good the blast blew through the surface of the earth it was as hot as an oven and burnt everything in its path the impact provoked a colossal earthquake and serious volcanic activity a bunch of volcanoes simultaneously released hot lava and ash into the prehistoric skies millions of tons of ash and suit poisoned the air this formed a huge ash cloud in the atmosphere which blocked out the sun's rays for several years the long winter had begun only there wasn't any snow falling from the sky but rain made of sulfuric acid yes the cheek shalom incident might just be the most important thing that ever happened in the history of our planet even more than youtube back then there were loads of volcanic eruptions a lot of flammable oxygen in the atmosphere constant temperature changes it was the perfect and worst time for all of this to go down so how are we so sure about all this well the asteroid left an absolutely huge crater on the planet's surface today this scar is hidden under the gulf of mexico scientists found a lot of places on earth with abnormally high levels of irradium this metal is very rare on earth but it's in a lot of asteroids that scientists have examined scientists studied some 66 million year old rocks in the layers of rock they found dust the same dust that comes from asteroids this could only have happened if a huge asteroid had crashed into earth the catastrophe led to the extinction of not only the dinosaurs but also the asteroid it was so hot at the point of impact part of the asteroid just disappeared a lot of water vapor and carbon dioxide shot up into the atmosphere but the biggest problem sulfur it got kicked up by the asteroid impact and flew up into the air these tiny sulfur particles blocked out a lot of the sun's rays without the sun a lot of plants disappeared and the climate eventually got colder the immense heat turned stones into glass scientists call these things tectites the energy of the impact threw them up into the skies after a short flight the tektites fell down to earth but it wasn't pretty rain fell too only instead of drops of water you'd have seen hot glassy fireballs they bombarded the planet's surface for days the tektites set fire to everything scientists found evidence of this all over the world not just near the collision side but a lot of things from back then are still a mystery some scientists think that cheek chalub wasn't even an asteroid it might have been a comet asteroids are mostly made of stone and metal most often they kind of look like a potato a comet contains rock metal and ice comets look like dirty cosmic snowflakes complete with ammonia methane and carbon dioxide comets sometimes come from the oort cloud it's a huge cloud of ice and debris around our solar system from time to time comets break free from the back and head towards our sun according to scientists this special comet flew right past jupiter the gravity of that huge planet accelerated the comet even more it flew towards the sun gaining more and more speed the comet's outer eye shield started to evaporate and it probably gave off a lot of dust and gas which made it look like it had a tail the sun's gravity eventually shattered the comet apart one of the fragments flew through space and crashed into the earth 66 million years ago so asteroid or comet the truth is we'll never know what we do know is that the earth was seriously unlucky to be in its path and it was never the same again the catastrophe stopped the development of 75 percent of life on earth some bigger marine animals like crocodiles turtles and fish survive the impact out of all land animals the only ones to survive were the ones that were on average smaller than the modern raccoon that includes a bunch of special species of dinosaurs the ancient ancestors of birds scientists believe they survived for two reasons after the huge impact it took a long time for plants to start growing again and a lot of animals didn't survive most remaining animals didn't have enough food but these dinosaurs had a beak with its help they could split open nuts and dig seeds out of the soil so they survived the second reason is that these lucky guys had bigger brains some people think that they were able to cooperate with each other and quickly adapt to the new conditions other life forms survive too fungi and mold survived underground and underwater gradually the darkness cleared away and ferns began to take over the lifeless landscape after a few thousand years forest started to reappear the animals that survived were pretty much all inconspicuous and small creatures they lived in burrows safe from all that hot ash before the collision mammals had lived in the shadow of dinosaurs but with all the dinosaurs suddenly gone things were about to change mammals were able to take over they began to dominate life at least on land back to the moment when everything changed turns out it wasn't the size of the asteroid that made it so powerful it was more about the angle in which it hit the earth if the angle of impact had been different the dinosaurs might have even survived the catastrophe so what would that have looked like well let's travel back way back oh no there's a giant asteroid heading for earth oh wait never mind it missed there are plenty of earthquakes tsunamis and volcanic eruptions every day but dinosaurs don't mind that much no big deal fast forward a few million years and most of these ancient lizards have changed and are now unrecognizable thanks to a couple of ice ages many dinosaurs are now totally covered with feathers to protect them from the cold mammals exist but they're few and far between you see a lot of bats and caves there are tons of rat sized rodents in the forests during the day they hide in the undergrowth or in burrows at night they go out in search of food there are no horses no elephants or other large mammals why become large and eatable when there are so many dangerous reptiles with huge fangs around there are no whales in the sea parrots hawks and pigeons are nowhere to be seen but pterodactyls 2.0 whiz past you constantly some are about the size of a helicopter while others are no larger than a swan there are plenty of primates but they're in no hurry to climb down from their trees and walk on two legs no venturing out into the savanna no evolution into homo sapiens in this alternate reality open spaces are very dangerous but then again so are forests and trees nowhere is safe to get some delicious primate treats many smaller dinosaurs learned to climb trees this was already happening back in the cretaceous period right before that huge asteroid just missed earth that would have been an epic collision dinosaurs have grown wiser since that near miss some are even as smart as a modern chicken a large brain uses a lot of energy and that's not always a good strategy for survival safer to keep brains small and keep making those teeth bigger and pointier

Channel: BRIGHT SIDE

Views: 1,969,237

Rating: 4.9181733 out of 5

Keywords: bright side, brightside, asteroids, meteorites, meteors, earth facts, facts about the world, fun science, the Earth, dinosaurs, what if dinosaurs were alive, what if dinosaurs hadn’t died out, t-rex, Jurassic park, videos about dinosaurs, dinosaurs facts, amazing science, history of Earth, asteroid effect, mass extinction, why asteroid isn't in museum

Id: 4lbIhxDCCRU

Length: 9min 6sec (546 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 09 2021